Jude Law Bestows Turner Prize, Billionaire Tracks Stolen Art on Google, and More

– Jude Law Hands out Turner Prize Tonight: The 2012 Turner Prize will be bestowed upon one of the shortlisted artists — Spartacus Chetwynd, Luke Fowler, Paul Noble, and Elizabeth Price — in a ceremony this evening at London's Tate Britain, with star of screen and stage Jude Law set to reveal the winner's identity. Odds-makers favor Noble, but Chetwynd has novelty on her side, being the first performance artist ever nominated for the coveted prize. [Independent]

– Billionaire Finds Stolen Art via Google Search: Billionaire art collector Jeffrey Gundlach made headlines earlier this year when he offered a $1.7-million reward for a $10-million cache of stolen artwork that included two works by Gundlach's late grandmother, Helen Fuchs. Apparently, the know-it-all financier (he's likened doing the Sunday Times crossword to "counting Cheerios in a box") gave the Feds a helpful tip to track down the lost paintings: He told them to check the Internet to see who might have googled his grandmother's name. Turns out two such searches were executed: one by him and one by the thieves. "The FBI," he said, "thought it was brilliant." [NYMag, Bloomberg]

– Paul Morris Reveals Next Project: Ever since Paul Morris, the founding director of New York's Armory Show, resigned from the fair, observers have wondered what he will do next. Now he's revealed his new project: Chosen, an exclusive, invitation-only club that will connect collectors with must-have works of art. Think of it as the anti-fair: "As someone who has produced 75 art fairs and attended at least 400," said Morris, "'Fairtigue' is a real problem. I felt that what was missing was a slower pace, a more dignified way of hanging and showing art." [FT]

– Are Chief Curators a Vanishing Breed?: Three notable chief curators have left their jobs at southern California museums in the past year, and successors are nowhere in sight. (As any journalist knows, three is a trend.) Paul Schimmel's departure from L.A. MOCA created a firestorm. In November, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill was let go from her position at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. The same fate befell Douglas Fogle at UCLA's Hammer Museum. The position at Hammer has remained vacant despite leadership's claim that a search for a replacement is underway. [LAT]

– Saltz Picks Eastwood as 2012's Best Artwork: New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz leads his Top 10 art picks of the year with an odd item: filmmaker Clint Eastwood's chair "performance" at the Republican National Convention. "As with real art," he writes, "time expanded, slowed down; viewers became aware of complex interplays between realities; logic was bypassed, multiple patterns of meaning formed." Other, more conventional favorites from the year include two exhibitions at Lower East Side gallery Ramiken Crucible,and Electronic Arts Intermix and Dia's tribute to Mike Kelley. [NYMag]

– Woman Finds Thrift Store Calder: The large piece "Red Nose," which Karen Mallet bought for $12.34 at a Goodwill thrift store in Milwaukee, is in fact a 1969 lithograph by Alexander Calder worth approximately $9,000. Upon seeing the signature, Mallet said, "I thought, I don't know if it's real or not but it's $12.99. I've wasted more on worse things." Her Goodwill membership sweetened the deal, bringing the price down ¢65. [AP]

– NYPD Raids Street Art Satirist: New York-based street artist Essam Attia's wildly popular satirical NYPD posters promoting drone strikes earned him the attention of the police agency, which raided his apartment, arrested him, and charged him on 56 separate counts including grand larceny and possession of a forged instrument. "The meaning of the drone campaign for me its really about creating a conversation," Attia has said. The police, apparently, were not interested in talking. [New York Daily News]

– Wade Guyton Thinks "People Have Too Much Money": Bloomberg has a wonderfully candid interview with art world darling and inkjet wunderkind Wade Guyton. The artist, who is fresh off a retrospective at the Whitney Museum, discusses common misconceptions about his work ("The misconception is that all of these are just happy accidents ... It kind of enrages people") and his disconnect from his own market ("To me, it just seems like people have way too much money"). There's also an anecdote about a chance meeting with a 10-year-old at the Whitney who had very strong opinions about his work. [Bloomberg]

– Turkey Gets Three More Fairs: Art fairs in Istanbul are multiplying fast. Ali Güreli, chairman of the seven-year-old fair Contemporary Istanbul, will launch three new events in the coming year: All Arts, a fair devoted to Islamic, Ottoman, and classical modern art; and two satellite events surrounding 2013's Contemporary Istanbul, one devoted to new media and photography and the other focusing on emerging galleries. [FT]

– 1961 Goya Thief's Identity Revealed: A confidential file released by the U.K.'s National Archives revealed that the man who stole a portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Goya from London's National Gallery in 1961 and held it for £140,000 ($224,000) ransom was John Bunton, the then-20-year-old son of a bus driver hoping to bring attention to his father's campaign against a BBC license fee. "He intended to use it as a tool in his campaign and that it should ultimately be returned to the National Gallery," according to the report. [Guardian]